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Call Drops = Money Drops

If you’ve ever traveled abroad, you know how poor cellphone service in this country can be.

Every cellphone carrier I’ve used suffers from dropped calls. Yet when I travel throughout Europe, 100 percent signal strength, 100 percent of the time is the norm.

Back in the States, I regularly lose coverage where the carriers’ coverage maps say it exists, whether that’s in the middle of Hollywood or a fancy corner of Beverly Hills.

The reasons are somewhat obvious: with its wide-open spaces and cell site restrictions, perfect coverage in this country can be a more difficult and expensive proposition.

When I used SBC, a now-defunct carrier, the company automatically credited a customer for one minute, if the same number was redialed within a few seconds; the system assumed if it was, it was because of a dropped call.

Those were the good old days. As you deal with multiple dropped calls on your next conversation, think about this: every call that is dropped costs you money. Occasionally, I’ve needed to redial a cell call four times; each recall counted as one minute against my allotted time. Multiply that by tens of millions of customers and the dollars add up.

I recently spoke to a friend who actually kept tabs of how many dropped calls he was incurring, and over a long period figured he was owed $400. It took months of cajoling to get the credit.

The carriers’ terms and conditions specifically state that they do not guarantee the quality of their service, which seems to absolve them of any obligation to credit you for dropped or unintelligible calls. T-Mobile said that it would “entertain” requests for credit, while AT&T said that “in general, we don’t give credit.”

Even if your carrier will give you credit, the companies know that the likelihood that customers will actually ask for it is between slim and none. What other business makes money by providing its customers with no service?

Perhaps the carriers want consumers to lose money? I tend to think of mega corporations like drug overlords, if they can get you hooked on their drug of choice, they’ll want you to spend as much money – including money wasted on nothing. It’s part of the business model.

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